Bear Ears

Translated by : Frances Riddle

I came across him the other day when I was looking for the snorkel fins in the storage space. I didn’t even remember that I’d left him there. He was covered in dust and had a thin spider web in his hair. I wiped it away. He was still dressed in his blue pants and the brown jacket with the bear ears on the hood. His eyes were closed, his arms outstretched, wanting a hug maybe or to be picked up, I don’t remember which but he always wanted to be held.

I remember that the only thing I wished was that he have a button to be turned off and on. As I held the pregnancy test in my hands, I imagined that the body forming inside my body had a little button on its chest. Something simple, like a light switch. The same color as his skin, so that the deformity wouldn’t be too noticeable, I didn’t want anyone else to be able to use it. Just me.

Although we’d been trying to have a baby the pregnancy took me by surprise. Happy? Somewhat. I have to admit that the idea of having a kid wasn’t wholly disagreeable to me. Ever since we’d gotten married I knew that was one of our goals: to start a family. The priest said so during the ceremony, our parents repeated it. They’d been asking us to make them grandparents for a while. So after six years we decided to stop taking birth control pills. It sounds funny now to say “we decided,” when really it was me who took them, it was me who bled every month, it was me who was going to give birth to the baby. But we were united, because we were a couple, and it was popular at the time to say: “we’re pregnant.” It sounded as ridiculous as saying: “we have a vaginal infection.” But, anyway, we were pregnant and excited, although surprised by how quickly it had all happened.

The books I read said that a planned pregnancy could take up to a year, even if we were both healthy. So I thought: “Okay, I have a year. Maybe in a year I’ll be able to convince myself I really want to be a mom.”

But I didn’t get a year. I didn’t even get two months. We’d barely fucked, what, three, four times? As I looked at the positive test all I wished, with all my heart, was that he’d have a little button. Because when I saw other moms, most of them tired with dark circles under their eyes, I always thought that would be the solution to everything.

There he was, all dusty, stuck in a box with blankets and his favorite stuffed animal. I didn’t want him to get lonely. How long had he been here in storage?

When I first discovered that I could turn him off I’d put him in his crib, like he was sleeping. I’d do it for an hour or so, two at most. I’d take advantage of the time to take a little nap. Everyone tells you to sleep when the baby is sleeping, because they think that all babies do is eat, poop, and sleep. But he was different. He cried a lot, took naps that only lasted a half hour, and wanted to eat all the time. My energy quickly drained. Two weeks after he was born I was already more exhausted than I’d ever been in my life.

The delivery was the easiest part. I really don’t understand all the fuss over childbirth. Yes, it hurts, of course. But nothing I couldn’t handle. I focused on my breathing. It was fast. I’d been at the hospital just a few hours when the doctor told me I was ten centimeters dilated. They didn’t even get the chance to give me anesthesia. I wanted it, of course, but it was all so quick that the anesthesiologist didn’t get there in time. When he walked into my room the obstetrician said: “too late.” He looked at me, apologized with a quick smile, and left. I felt the urge to push so I pushed. I pushed again and then the doctor told me that the head was already out, that I should resist the urge to push, that she and the baby would take it from there.

He cried. I cried. We cried. My husband was by my side the whole time. They handed the baby over so I could put him to my chest, what they call skin to skin contact. He was little, very wrinkly, and covered in a whitish slime that made him look even more like an alien. It was all so fast. This was my son. This was my son? This was my son, that’s what everyone said. “Look what a pretty baby.” They took him, his dad following behind.

The boy was a month old when I found the button. By accident. I never imagined my wish would come true. I’d never heard of a baby that could be turned off. That’s why I was scared the first time it happened. I’d just taken him out of the tub and I was drying under his arms with a towel when I felt my thumb press down on some kind of a small lump and I heard a click and he sort of froze. It scared me, but immediately I knew that something, someone, had fulfilled my wish. I felt for the little lump under his arm and I pressed it again. He started moving, like always. Making the same little noises with his mouth, moving his tiny hands. I finished dressing him, settled him into the bassinet, put the blanket over him, and found the button. I turned him off and I slept for over two hours. I was happy.

I didn’t want to tell anyone about my discovery. I only used it when I was home alone. The first week I allowed myself two hours a day to sleep. The second week I started turning him off at lunchtime too, so I could make myself something other than a ham and cheese sandwich. The third week I started using the button as soon as my husband left for work, so I could go for a run in the park. I’d go home, turn the baby on, feed and bathe him, then turn him back off so I could take a shower and a nap. Then I’d turn him on, feed him, and put him face up in his baby gym for a while and then face down, on his stomach, so he could exercise his muscles. Then I’d turn him back off for lunch and another nap. Later I’d turn him on to put him in his stroller and take him out for a walk. This routine worked well for the first few months.

I picked up the box, forgetting all about the snorkel fins. I decided to bring him up to the apartment. He looked peaceful, but he was very dirty and seeing him in that state touched something inside me. His cheeks were black with dirt, his hands covered in dust. His clothes smelled damp. But he looked healthy. I got out the Hoover and gave him a good vacuuming. I took him out of the box and shook out the blankets, then I vacuumed the inside of the box and the stuffed dog too. I got a cloth and wet it to clean his face and hands. I stood looking at him for a minute. I’d loved dressing him in jackets that had round bear ears on the hood. He looked adorable in them.

One day my husband came home early from work and he found me sleeping and the baby turned off in his crib. Just a glance at the baby, so still, frozen, and he panicked. He started shaking me and screaming: “There’s something wrong with the baby!” I got frightened. I sat up in bed and looked at the crib. I immediately relaxed. “Calm down, love. He’s turned off. I’ll turn him back on.” His eyes looked like they were about to fall out of his head. I picked up the baby, pressed the button, and he calmly started moving, looking for my breasts. “He’s hungry.” My husband sat on the edge of the bed. He grabbed his head in disbelief. I fed the baby, changed his diaper, and put on his pajamas. My husband hadn’t moved. I waited a while longer. The baby fell asleep. Then he finally turned to me and said: “So the baby can be turned off and on?” He was expecting me to say that what he’d seen wasn’t real, that he’d dreamed it, I don’t know. “Yes, exactly. There’s a button under his arm. I turn him off when I need to sleep or eat. But it doesn’t hurt him. He’s doing great. Look at him, he’s a happy baby.”

I thought he was going to get mad at me, to say I was an irresponsible mother, insane. “Do you think we could turn him off this weekend to go to the movies?” he asked with a shy smile.

The blankets and the stuffed animal were dirty and they smelled bad. Like mildew. I decided to put them in the washing machine. In the back of the cabinet where I keep the cleaning products I found the hypoallergenic laundry detergent I’d used to wash the baby’s clothes. There was still enough for a few loads. The clothes were dirty too, so I carefully took them off and threw them in the wash. Meanwhile, I covered him with the bedspread.

We started turning him off to go out to eat, to go to the movies, to visit friends, go to parties. At first we agreed we’d only do it for special occasions. The rest of the time the baby would stay turned on. Then we talked about it some more and decided that the button should only be used to help us as a couple. To give us back the intimacy we’d lost when he’d arrived, to allow space for the two of us to be together.

The truth is that I continued doing it a few times a day without telling anyone, to make time for basic things like exercise, doing my nails, watching a TV show or two, reading a book, working.

When he turned one year old we got a little more audacious. We left him turned off for three days straight and we went on vacation to the beach. We were happy, as if nothing had changed. When we got home we started to use the button more freely. Sometimes we’d disconnect our son for a few days and let life go back to how it had been before he was born.

The new circumstances caused us to question everything. My husband decided he wanted to see the world. After thinking a lot about his life, on the nights we lay beside each other without sleeping or talking with the little one turned off in the other room, he realized that his deepest wish was to become a professional traveler, without a home or any fixed direction. So one day without warning he informed me that he planned to go off on an adventure around the world for two years. He told me that he loved me, but that he didn’t want me to wait for him, he asked me to start my life over and find my happiness.

I was so devastated that I forgot to turn the baby back on. After a few months I decided to put him in the closet and turn his nursery into a studio. I hung a huge TV on the wall and got a large computer monitor for the desk and I put an elliptical machine next to the window to exercise every morning while I watched something on Netflix. At some point I moved the baby to the box and took it down to the storage space. But I don’t remember how long ago that was. A couple of years?

As soon as the dryer finished its cycle I folded the blankets and put them back in the box. I got the little one dressed. When he was ready, in his blue pants and his jacket, I thought it would be a good time to turn him back on. So I did. I felt for the button. I heard the click. Immediately my son tried to hug me. I wrapped him in my arms. I’d forgotten how nice and warm his body felt against mine. I put his hood on his head, like when we were going out for a walk in the park. He looked so cute in the little bear ears. I loved to dress him like that.

“Mama,” he said. “Mamamamamamamama,” he repeated. I hugged him again. I kissed his pink, chubby cheeks. I felt for the button. I turned him off and settled him back into his box. Along with his stuffed animal, of course, so he doesn’t get lonely.